Nazarbayev gave himself a gift

He led the party and removed his daughter from leadership

President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev yesterday headed the people's democratic party "Nur Otan" ("Shine of the Fatherland"). This extraordinary event took place at the extraordinary XI Party Congress, convened in connection with the early parliamentary elections scheduled for August 18. Everything was furnished casually and simply. “In accordance with the constitution, I have the right to become the chairman of our party,” the president told the congress deputies. “This is an international practice that will be applied in Kazakhstan.”

Amendments to the constitution adopted in May of this year removed the article that prohibited the head of state from leading a political party. Having united three other pro-government parties in 2006, including the Asar party, created and led by the president’s eldest daughter Dariga Nazarbayeva, the Otan party then added the prefix “nur” to its name. For Kazakhstanis, the first three letters of the president’s name became additional evidence that the ruling party had become presidential. Yesterday, after Nazarbayev became its chairman, this status received legal formalization. This event can be considered a political gift presented by Nursultan Abishevich Nazarbayev to himself for his birthday - tomorrow he turns 67 years old.

Another decision made by delegates of the Nur Otan congress became a sensation. Dariga Nazarbayeva was not included in the party’s list of candidates for deputies of the Majilis (lower house of parliament), consisting of 127 names. She also lost her post as deputy chairman of Nur Otan and a member of the party’s political council.

Obviously, this overthrow of a famous and ambitious figure from the political Olympus was the result of a loud scandal that erupted at the end of May of this year within the country’s First Family. The husband of 44-year-old Mrs. Nazarbayeva and the father of her three children, Rakhat Aliyev, was stripped of his post as Kazakhstan's ambassador to Austria and part-time to the OSCE, and then accused of a number of criminal offenses, organizing a criminal group, kidnapping, racketeering...

Currently, Rakhat Aliyev is in Vienna under a written undertaking not to leave the country on bail of one million euros and is awaiting a decision on extradition to Kazakhstan. According to Aliyev, Dariga Nazarbayeva, under pressure from her father, was forced to agree to an absentee divorce from her husband. Two weeks ago, Ms. Nazarbayeva publicly confirmed this, calling the divorce “a hard-fought and conscious choice” and complaining about the “exclusion of the possibility of a private life.” Then Dariga Nursultanovna made it clear that she was ready to devote herself entirely to party activities, working with young people and creating the right gender balance in the ranks of Nur Otan.

However, the criminal and political drama that erupted in the Family of Kazakhstan apparently led the head of this Family and the country to the need to reconsider the party status of his eldest daughter, who until recently was considered almost the main political heir of the president. Nazarbayev yesterday called on his fellow party members to “prove” in the elections that Nur Otan “is the force that leads the country to prosperity.” Having expressed confidence that the people of Kazakhstan will give their votes only to the party whose words are consistent with deeds, and this is Nur Otan, the president decided to destroy traces of the presence of his former son-in-law and the media-financial group headed by him in his party. Rakhat’s father, medical academician Mukhtar Aliyev, as well as publisher Andrei Shukhov, who is close to the disgraced ex-ambassador, were removed from the political council of Nur Otan.

Arkady DUBNOV